Barbarian's Prize(2)

The problem with the khui (or cootie, as we humans like to call it) is that it likes to match people up. It decides who’s a perfect ‘baby’ match for who, and makes them resonate. Resonance means the khui in your chest starts purring and it makes you crazy-horny for your newfound mate until he impregnates you. According to everyone, there’s no getting around it. You can’t just will resonance to go away. It happens and boom, end of story.

“Well, we know why you haven’t resonated,” I tell her. “Did your IUD fall out?”

“Not yet.”

Not yet. It might never fall out, because there’s no doctor to remove it. But Josie, again, is a creature of hope. I shake my head. “I just don’t get why you find it romantic,” I tell her, adjusting my blankets. “I don’t want to resonate. I want choices.”

She sighs again. “I guess because…it means family. You know? I never had a family of my own growing up. I went through eight foster homes by the time I was eighteen. No one ever wanted me…except for the wrong reasons.” Her voice grows a little hard.

I wince, imagining those ‘wrong’ reasons. Josie’s got a round face and not much of a chest, but there’s a sweet innocence to her that I can imagine attracts the wrong kind of attention. Poor Josie. “Well, you’re a woman on a planet full of men. I’m sure someone will want you now.”

“Nope, they all want you,” she says with amusement. “And that’s all right, because when the cootie picks, it won’t matter. It’ll take one look at someone in the tribe and bam. Instalove. And then we can be happy together and I’ll have the family I always wanted.”

“And you won’t care that he never noticed you before then?” I ask, amused. Josie’s painting such a rosy picture.

“Won’t matter,” she says with a yawn. “Past is past. Future’s all that matters.”

Another difference between Josie and me. I can’t get over my past. I can’t move on past the ship and the awful captivity. I can’t move past rough hands touching me and forcing me down. I know Josie’s optimism is hard-won. She’s hinted at her awful, awful childhood and she was also raped on the ship. Josie cried for one night and then tucked the bad memories away. She didn’t lose her sunshine.

I really wish I could be more like her. I want to move on, but I can’t.

“Well, I’d trade places with you in a heartbeat,” I tell her. “I wouldn’t mind having an IUD.” It’d mean that no resonance because even a cootie can’t get past birth control.

“There has to be a reason why you haven’t resonated!”

“Nope.” I smooth my blankets. “No reason other than my body doesn’t feel like having babies. Or maybe one of these guys isn’t my perfect match. Don’t know, don’t care.”

“You really don’t care for one of the guys more than any of the others?”

“Nope.”

“What about Hassen? He seems nice.”

“Eh.” They’re all nice. They go out of their way to be nice.

“Taushen?”

“He’s very…attentive.” Too much so. Like in a smothering way.

She giggles. “Vaza?”

I snort. “Vaza would hit on anything with tits.”

“Maybe that’s why he hasn’t hit on me,” she muses.

We both break into giggles. Josie’s biggest lament is that she doesn’t have boobs. I don’t think she needs them because she’s the sweetest, most giving person I’ve ever met, and the most cheerful. But I’m not a guy. I can’t deny that the guys have been flocking to me a lot more than poor Josie.

Ironic, because I don’t want any of the attention.

“What about Bek?” she asks with a yawn. “Didn’t he try to give you the necklace he made for Claire?”

“Yeah.” I don’t like to think about Bek adding himself to my list of suitors. Guy clearly has no idea how to treat a lady. Bek’s also a lot more hot-tempered than the others, and that worries me. We’ve been dropped on a planet full of big, brawny, seven-foot tall men who are sex deprived. I’m always nice to the guys that leave me presents and I never try to show anyone preferential treatment. I keep them all at arm’s length and never encourage anyone.

But I worry there will be a day when one of them snaps. When someone stops asking and starts taking.

“Imagine what would happen if you resonated to Bek?” she says in a scandalous whisper.

“I’d leave,” I say flatly.

She gasps and sits up in her furs. “You what?”